Tuesday, 23 December 2014

2014 Online Advent Calendar

Welcome to everyone who has taken the time to stop by at this busy time of year and a huge thank you to Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for organising this festive blog hop.

I love Christmas and I love stitching Christmas themed designs. Christmas stitching is quite a large part of our decorations now so I will just pick out a few to show you. Some of the photos aren't as good as I would like due to the poor light at this time of year. I call this "pit pony weather" as I only see daylight at the weekends.

Christmas Angel by Passione Ricamo

This was stitched a couple of years ago but I only got it framed in 2014 so this is the first Christmas it has been on display. It's stitched on an oatmeal 14 count aida and I love the rich red colours of the cloak.

This next photo is of a cushion using stitchery and patchwork on a Christmas theme. I did it as a class so I don't know who the designer is.

I like to put stitched pieces into coasters - here are 3 which started out as Christmas cards from fellow stitchers

And finally here are 2 of the many stockings I have stitched over the years. Most of the ones I have stitched are from the Shepherd's Bush designs and they are scattered over the country hanging up waiting for Santa to fill them soon.

2 Stockings - design by Lizzie Kate

As you can see I used the same pattern but adapted the colours so that each sister has a slightly different version. Both are stitched on 20 count evenweave using #5 perle thread. You can't see it in the photo but both fabrics have sparkly threads - one gold and one silver.

As well as displaying some Christmas stitching Jo asked us to write about our best ever Christmas present. This was tough. I was fortunate enough to have a happy childhood with lots of lovely Christmas gifts and then a husband who, while he was able, bought me lovely gifts.

But I suppose that using the "what would you save first from a fire" test I would pick out the necklace given to me by my paternal grandmother one Christmas. It is a lovely Victorian design of gold, amethyst and seed pearls and while not particularly valuable it has a great sentimental value to me as it was given to my grandmother on her 21st birthday. She gave it to me "to make sure I got it" and I have always treasured it. It is always much admired when I wear it and I hope at some future date to pass it on to my own granddaughter.

9 comments:

Thank you for taking part in the Advent Calendar this year. The Passione Ricamo piece is so beautiful. I am sure it will have pride of place every year now you have it framed.Lovely story about your heirloom necklace too. Gifts with special meaning have featured strongly in this blog hop.